Friday, October 19, 2012

Mouse Paint


Mouse Paint
Author & Illustrator:  Ellen Stoll Walsh





Genre: Fiction

Grade Level: Preschool to 2nd grade

Theme: Colors, Animals


Summary: This super cute easy read is about three mice who are trying to escape a cat.  These mischievous mice get into some trouble when they start getting into paint and mixing colors.

Pre-Reading Activity:  Show the children a color wheel and discuss how you can mix colors to make up different colors.  Talk about the primary colors that cannot be made: red, yellow, and blue.

Post-Reading Activity: Have the children use paint and make new colors.  There are so many worksheets that you can make.  I have included a couple below.  Also, you can go even farther and get white plastic mice from the Dollar Store and let the children paint them.  I had my Preschool Classroom do this and though it was messy the children LOVE it!!!  We also used finger paint on butcher paper to do this as well.

Reflection:  I love this story and like I said, I used it with my preschool classroom.  We had a  ball with it and were mixing all sorts of colors.  They were so excited and I could not be prouder than when one of the parents came in the next day and told me her son talked about the book all night and remembered what colors the mice made and what colors the mice used to get those colors.  The mom was so impressed and I could not be any happier.  For some reason mice really get children's attention.


About the Author Ellen Stoll Walsh

  ELLEN STOLL WALSH is the author and illustrator of many award-winning early concept books for young children, including Mouse Paint, Mouse Count, and the Dot and Jabber trilogy. She lives near Rochester, New York. (amazon.com)





Interesting Things I Found:

Cool video of Brian reading Mouse Paint:


  
Both found on teacherspayteachers.com






  

2 comments:

  1. Hey Jill, from reading your summary, this sounds like a funny book; definitely a story children would enjoy listening to. I really liked your pre-reading activity because it fits perfectly with the book and a good age group to introduce the color wheel to. I don't remember much about art, but I still remember the being taught the color wheel.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yeah, it is hard to introduce the color wheel to children so I think this book could be used as a great starter to that. It is a very simple book with few words, but you could talk forever about the different colors that the mice make!

    ReplyDelete